Wednesday, September 11, 2013

September 12, 2001, I walked down my steps and opened the garage door
to take out the garbage. The sun was going down and it would be dark
soon I was going to make sure the big garage door was closed too. In our
garage I found my 12-year-old middle son. He had on everything
Army-ish. Camouflage pants and t-shirt, the only boots he owned, snow
boots and an Army helmet from a Halloween costume. He also had his toy
rifle and when I stepped into the garage, he appeared to be pretend
loading it.
“What are you doing baby?”
This annoyed him, he rolled his eyes at me, I guess in my surprise at
running into him down there I made a critical error in calling my
little soldier, baby.
“Mom, I’m securing the perimeter of the house.”
Any other day this one little story of mine would have found itself
in my humor blog. Any other day I would have sent him off to play
soldier. Any other day I would have smiled at him instead of having
tears well up in my eyes.
But this day I asked him to go upstairs and told him we need to talk.
I had to find out what was going on in that 12-year-old head and try to
ease his obvious concerns. And after all I couldn’t have him walking
around the house with a toy gun in the dark, everyone was on red alert,
someone would have called the police, I know I would have. We were all
on edge, uncertain and scared.
I was able to send my baby back into the security of our home and
thanked God for that. I had been praying just about non-stop since the
day before, September 11, 2001, when Islamic extremist flew our
airplanes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the field in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
This anniversary of terrorism is difficult for me, I have a hard time
looking at the pictures, listening to the stories and seeing the
videos. Maybe it’s because that day has become just that, an
anniversary. To me, September 11, 2001 is unresolved and unfinished. The
threat is still there. Mothers are sending their babies to war. Mothers
are trying to explain Army isn’t a video game. And with each
“anniversary” that goes by I ask myself what has to happen to change the
uneasy feeling I get every September 11th?